![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/photo-session\/modern-gypsies\/2012-10\/NV1_4844-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I got a call from Michael Saab of the Modern Gypsies<\/a> to let me know that they were performing in a night-club in Manhattan, and would I be interested in doing some promotional photos for them? Of course! Other\u00a0photo sessions with the Modern Gypsies<\/a>\u00a0were all energizing experiences.\u00a0(The Modern Gypsies also featured in my book,\u00a0off-camera flash<\/a>.)\u00a0Working with creative people always fuels the creative spark.<\/p>\n At the night-club, I looked around for interesting areas I could shoot some portraits. I felt this curving passage-way could be a complementary background for this one outfit. But it took a few test-shots and adjustments to get where I wanted to be …<\/p>\n This curving hallway looked like it might work as an interesting background. But it was dark, so I would have to add some light to it.<\/p>\n Here is the pull-back shot to reveal the lighting set-up:<\/p>\n Two light-stands. The one behind has a bare speedlight to give a bit of a rim-light. (I zoomed it to 85mm so that it didn’t spread too wide and light up so much of the walls.)<\/p>\n The 2nd speedlight was in a small softbox – the\u00a0Lastolite 8.6″ Ezybox for\u00a0speed lights<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>). Since I needed to contain the light in that passage-way I didn’t want to use a larger softbox, and especially not an umbrella, since that would spread the light too wide. The smaller softbox was better suited.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n camera settings:<\/strong> The slower shutter speed, and wide-ish aperture helped bring in the ambient light – that red lighting along the sides of the passage.<\/p>\n To get my lighting setup to work, and make sure it all came together, I asked Irene to stand in the spot I had picked. Some readers of the Tangents blog might remember her as Bird Girl<\/a>.<\/p>\n The vertical test shot quickly revealed that the main light – even with the small sofbox – would light up the floor too much. I would have to shoot this as horizontal portraits.<\/p>\n This horizontal test shot with the 24-70mm at 70mm, also told me that I would have to stand back much further with the 70-200mm f\/2.8 zoom, and compress the perspective.<\/p>\n A comparison photo without the flashes being triggered to show how much ambient light appeared in the final images.<\/p>\n I also had to do dual portraits like this next image.<\/p>\n But f\/3.5 would not be enough depth-of-field, so I dialed my aperture to f\/5.6 to give more DoF. Since the change in aperture would affect the manual flash output, I quickly dialed in the extra 1.3 stops of light via the\u00a0PocketWizard AC3 Zone Controller\u00a0 on the TT5 unit on my camera. I dropped the shutter speed slightly to help compensate for the ambient light now being under-exposed by the same 1.3 stops.<\/p>\n camera settings:<\/strong> <\/p>\n This sequence of photographs came together because of the background. Controlling how much the light from the speedlights spread, helped. But mostly, being able to control *how* my background appears, depended on the longer focal length of the 70-200mm f\/2.8 zoom. Understanding how a longer focal length helps to compress perspective, and thereby giving you much tighter control over what becomes your background, is essential for any photographer.<\/p>\n With this, the 70-200mm f\/2.8 zoom is an indispensable part of my gear, and helps shape my style of photography.<\/p>\n Both the Nikon and Canon lenses are stellar.<\/p>\n photo shoot & off-camera flash – making the background count I got a call from Michael Saab of the Modern Gypsies to let me know that they were performing in a night-club in Manhattan, and would I be interested in doing some promotional photos for them? Of course! Other\u00a0photo sessions with the Modern Gypsies\u00a0were all Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,429,110,31,1],"tags":[213,112],"yst_prominent_words":[4133,6862,2905,5380,1134,1265,6865,1918,6868,1912,6872,6219,5377,5340,6873,1417,5247,5849,1580,6581],"class_list":{"0":"post-11814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-composition","8":"category-modern-gypsies","9":"category-off-camera-flash","10":"category-photo-shoot","11":"category-uncategorized","12":"tag-multiple-off-camera-flash","13":"tag-off-camera-flash-photography","14":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11814"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41481,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11814\/revisions\/41481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11814"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/photo-session\/modern-gypsies\/2012-10\/NV2_2801-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/photo-session\/modern-gypsies\/2012-10\/NV2_2838-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\nequipment (or equivalents) used during this photo session:<\/h2>\n
\n
\n<\/a>or alternately, the\u00a0Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite<\/a>\u00a0controlled by\u00a0Canon ST-E3 Transmitter<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/photo-session\/modern-gypsies\/2012-10\/NV1_4869-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n1\/20 @ f3.5 @ 800 ISO \u00a0.., manual flash.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/photo-session\/modern-gypsies\/2012-10\/NV2_2812.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/photo-session\/modern-gypsies\/2012-10\/NV2_2814-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/photo-session\/modern-gypsies\/2012-10\/NV1_4874-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/photo-session\/modern-gypsies\/2012-10\/NV1_4960-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n1\/15 @ f5.6 @ 800 ISO …\u00a0Manual Flash<\/p>\nsummary<\/h2>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/BH\/70-200\/Canon-70-200-lrg.jpg\")
<\/a>
Canon EF 70-200mm f\/2.8L IS II<\/a>\u00a0 (Amazon)\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/BH\/70-200\/Nikon-70-200-lrg.jpg\")
<\/a>
Nikon 70-200mm f2.8G VR II<\/a>\u00a0 (Amazon)\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"